Health ministry to accelerate polio vaccination rate
VGP - The National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology has urged localities to promptly provide routine immunizations for babies born in 2021 and 2022 as the rate went down in these years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The move came as the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Commission for the Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication in the Western Pacific moved Viet Nam from the list of low risk countries to the list of countries at high risk of wild polio import or having cases of polio caused by genetically modified viruses.
The WHO recommended Viet Nam should rashly achieve the vaccination rate set out in the Expanded Immunization Program, especially for such diseases as polio, measles and rubella.
Accordingly, children born in 2021 and 2022 will be vaccinated against polio in the second quater of 2023.
Polio vaccines are supported by GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance Immunization. Syringes and safety boxes have been distributed to localities across Viet Nam.
Polio used to be one of the leading causes of death and severe sequelae in children under five years of age in Viet Nam. Thanks to the implementation of polio vaccine, Viet Nam has controlled polio since 2000.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, infants in Viet Nam missed out on lifesaving vaccines. However, the Government has made efforts to get the routine immunization for children back on track.
Viet Nam has returned to the strong child and adolescent immunization system it had built before the pandemic –the system that stood up strongly to safely and effectively deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the people./.
